I met Avvocato Agnelli for the last time at the beginning of 2003, a few weeks before his death. I had just been appointed managing director of the publishing company of La Stampa, the newspaper he loved, the one he considered the brightest jewel in his crown. He didn't get out of bed, he spoke with difficulty. Fiat was going through a very serious crisis. And even La Stampa was not doing well. He advised me to always keep the newspaper's profile high, to safeguard Savoyard culture by projecting it into an international context. Agnelli loved newspapers as bearers of the democratic culture of a country which, in order to live in freedom, must have reliable and credible means of information in the eyes of its citizens.
He had also shown how President of Confindustria back in 1975, when he argued that Il Sole 24 Ore should be the newspaper of the Italian economy and not the spokesperson for the Confindustria lobby. Avvocato Agnelli, of whom he falls on March 12th the centenary of his birth, was a point of reference for Italians in the second half of the last century, that of economic reconstruction and the affirmation of democracy in the West after two terrible "civil wars". Certainly not everyone loved him, some criticized him, but everyone respected him, acknowledging his attachment to duty and a sense of responsibility. He was aware that he was born into privilege and always made it a point of honor to live up to the obligations that that position entailed, obligations to his workers, and to the country.
The huge crowd flocked to the Lingotto to pay him their last respects in those sad days at the end of January 2003, confirms that the Italians, and not just the Turinese, felt that his death deprived Italy of a safe point of reference, a beacon to turn to in the most difficult moments of collective life. After all, Agnelli was both a citizen of the world and profoundly Italian. People recognize me – he said – because I have always been by their side. I fought in Russia and Africa when my country called (albeit due to a brutal dictatorship), I enjoyed when there was fun, I am a football fan and I have rejoiced or suffered for the results of my favorite team like millions of other fans, I tried to defend Fiat from the attacks of predators, I sought social peace with the 1975 union agreement on the single contingency point.
There is a sea of anecdotes about Avvocato Agnelli. They almost never manage to return an exact photo of the true way of being of him. He was certainly curious, in the sense that he wanted to understand the things of life well. He sought excellence in everything: if he went sailing he wanted the best skipper around; if he wanted to learn the secrets of poker he hired the best professionals from the green table. He loved women but respected them. He didn't gossip: "I talk WITH women and not ABOUT women". He tried to understand the deep nature of the people he met by asking a barrage of questions. The most difficult thing for a shareholder – he said – is to understand the men and choose the right ones to whom to entrust the fate of the company or of one of its sectors.
He was a true conservative, that is, he believed in the principle of authority, he looked with annoyance at populisms which risk leading to totalitarianisms, yet he had an interest in men of the left. Many collaborators of the press were. He esteemed Lama secretary of the CGIL and his opponent in many union clashes. Not that he wanted to convince them of the virtues of capitalism and the free market, he appreciated in them the commitment to improve society, the dedication to an ideal that had often put their personal freedom at risk. Just as in the business world he was curious about new men, those who came from the ranks and who were trying to reach the heights of success.
When in 1966 he succeeded in Valletta as president of Fiat, the postwar economic boom was drawing to a close. Since then, the crises have followed one another at an increasing pace, leaving only brief moments of calm between one storm and another. There was 1968 and then terrorism, the march of the 40, stagnation together with inflation, the increasingly evident political crisis up to Tangentopoli. Fiat was involved. Some prominent leaders were arrested. The journalistic rumors gave the possible opening of investigations also on the top management of the company, Romiti and Agnelli. In a gloomy atmosphere it was decided to come out, try to dispel the pall of suspicion that was paralyzing the company. The occasion was the lawyer's participation in a Confindustria conference in Venice.
We prepared a speech in which the idea of Fiat as a company that thrived on corruption was rejected, indeed, if any bribe had been given to politicians it was to enforce their legitimate rights. In short, Fiat was concussed if anything and not a center of corruption. The lawyer was nervous, he called me at dawn to find out if I had any news about the mood of the audience. But everything had been well organised. After the first three or four paragraphs of pleasantries, when the Avvocato's speech touched on the issue of Tangentopoli and Fiat's position, a loud and prolonged applause broke out from the audience. The industrialists, slapped by the prosecutors, rallied around their natural leader and rediscovered the desire to react, and the pride of reaffirming their role in the Italian social and political context.
It was related to the United States but he firmly believed in Europe. Against the advice of Romiti and Cuccia, he fought for Italy's entry into the euro with the leading group. He knew very well that for businesses it would be a great challenge as it would no longer be possible to count on the devaluation of the lira. But he also knew (and the question is still topical) that autarky, shutting oneself up within one's own borders does not ensure greater protection, but forces the entire country into a cage, a real prison. Perhaps one day a biography of the lawyer will be written. Agnelli stripped of gossip, but capable of giving us back a complex man, with many human contradictions but who was an emblematic figure in our history of the last century for our country.
Through him we should face a historical reconstruction of the rebirth and then of the slow decline of our country starting from the post-war period up to the present day. Understand the reasons why we have lost the path of growth. If today we think back to the last fifty years of the last century, and make a comparison with today's world, we realize that everything has changed. The life of that time seems to us remote not by decades, but by centuries. The big companies of those years are gone, or have shrunk so much that they blend in with all the others. In politics, the church-parties, ie ideological ones, have disappeared and in their place there are personal formations or formations based on one is worth one (which is not so true that one decides to change the name in a meeting of four people).
The problems that troubled us in those years, such as chemical warfare, or the opposition between secular finance and Catholic finance, have vanished. As well as in general we are no longer plagued by hyperflation. We are in a totally different world. Individual protagonism driven by social media has demolished the old ruling classes, which certainly had many wrongs, but has left a void in their place. Yet, slowly, the conviction is gaining ground that a true democracy cannot live without a ruling class worthy of having the trust of the majority of citizens. And herein lies, perhaps, the most enduring lesson that we can draw from the figure of Avvocato Agnelli, a man of another century, but one who reminds us that the function of the manager is inseparable from the assumption of responsibility, from a sense of duty, and from courage in facing dangers.
Here, wanting to qualify the figure of Agnelli with a single adjective, we can say that it was a brave man.
